[ Updated ] PBE Context Post - Patch 3.09

Updated: Added a few additional posts, including Xypherous discussing more Oracles Elixir changes.

As we've been treated to in the past, Riot has just published a context post aiming to give summoner's some early insight in to several of the ( tentative ) changes that are popping up on the PBE.

Continue reading for Riot's rundown of the changes currently sitting on the PBE and a preview of what is slotted for patch 3.09.
Here is Riot Pwyff with the goods:

"Hey Summoners,

As you know, we use the PBE servers as a testing ground for a lot of our
experimental changes, but we’ve run into situations where sometimes a
change requires a bit more nuance to understand. As a result, we’ll be
driving these PBE context posts when we can offer some more context.

Also note that these changes are tentative, like anything else on the PBE, so they are all very subject to change.

Brand

Pillar of Flame

Mana cost reduced at later ranks from 70/80/90/100/110

Delay normalized from 0.5s ~ 0.75s

Conflagation

Mana cost increased from 60/65/70/75/80

Pyroclasm

Mana cost reduced at later ranks from 100/150/200

Draven

We wanted to lower Draven’s high early game damage output from his
passive, as it was not adding much in terms of real gameplay.
Unfortunately, to get the numbers right we realized we would need to
reduce his passive damage to a point where it would be even more
unsatisfying. We instead opted to rework Draven’s passive into something
that reinforces his current gameplay and can be appreciated by both him
and his opponents. Welcome to the League of Draven.

League of Draven (New Passive)

Draven gains a stack of
Adoration when he catches a Spinning Axe or kills a minion or monster.
When Draven kills an enemy champion, he cashes in half of his Adoration
stacks, gaining gold per stack consumed. Draven loses up to a certain
amount of stacks of Adoration upon death.

Elise

Spider Form / Human Form

No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

Jayce

Transform: Mercury Hammer / Mercury Cannon

No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

Kennen

We’ve tuned down some of Kennen’s early game lane harass, especially given how much teamfight potential he has.

Base Attack Damage at level 1 reduced from 54.6

Attack Damage gained per level increased from 3.3

Mark of the Storm

Mark duration reduced from 8 seconds

Leblanc

Leblanc's Mimic was less a decision point and more of a tool to
one-shot someone with Sigil of Silence. These changes are aimed at
improving the patterns and decisions around using Mimic. Our most
obvious adjustment is the fact that mimicked abilities will now deal
their own base damage instead of amplifying the base spell. This means
players will be able to use Mimic in more creative ways at level 6,
rather than holding it for Sigil of Silence. Additionally, Sigil of
Silence will now deal less damage up front but more damage on detonation
in order to better promote LeBlanc’s multi-skill interaction.

Mirror Image

The Mirror Image will now attempt to run instead of standing still

Sigil of Silence

Mana Cost reduced from 70/75/80/85/90

Impact Damage decreased from 70/110/150/190/230

Impact AP Ratio decreased from 0.6

Mark Damage increased from 20/40/60/80/100

Mark AP Ratio increased from 0.3

Silence duration reduced from 2 seconds

Distortion

Cooldown now starts on cast rather than after returning to your Distortion

Ethereal Chains

Slow duration (and time until root) reduced from 2 seconds

Root duration standardized across all ranks from 1/1.3/1.6/1.9/2.2

Cooldown increased at earlier ranks from 10/10/10/10/10

Mimic

Mana Cost decreased at early levels

All mimicked abilities now deal their own base damage instead of
amplifying the base spell. In all cases, the mimicked spell will deal
higher damage than the base spell (due to higher base damage or higher
AP ratios).

Leona

Solar Flare

Delay normalized from 0.5s~0.75s

Nidalee

Aspect of the Cougar

No longer counts as a spellcast for the purposes of items like Tears of the Goddess, Sheen, etc.

Shyvana

We’re repositioning Flame Breath as a core tool for objective control
and faster jungle clear while also emphasizing its use as a “burn down”
ability to be followed up with auto attacks against more tanky
fighters. We’ve also increased Shyvana’s Fury gain at higher levels of
Dragon’s Descent to help her engage in team fights more consistently at
late game. Lastly, we’ve moved Shyvana’s old passive effects to the
actual ability tooltips to help centralize information.

Fury of the Dragonborn

Remade. All Fury of the Dragonborn effects are now located on the ability tooltip rather than the passive.

*NEW PASSIVE*: Dragonborn

Gains bonus Armor and Magic resistance. This bonus is increased per level. These bonuses are doubled in Dragon Form.

Flame Breath

No longer reduces Armor by 15%

Now passes through all units hit instead of stopping at the first

Debuff duration increased from 4 seconds

Damage decreased at higher levels from 80/125/170/215/260

On-hit magic damage to debuffed targets changed to a % of the target's Maximum Health from 15% of Flame Breath's damage.

Dragon's Descent

Passive Armor/Magic Resistance component removed

Fury Gain per hit increased at later ranks from 2/2/2

Passive Fury Gain increased at later ranks from 1/1/1 per 1.5 seconds

Swain

Nevermove

Delay normalized from 0.75s~1s

Veigar

Dark Matter

Delay normalized from 1.2s~1.5s

Ziggs

We wanted to make it easier and more rewarding for Ziggs to use
Satchel Charge offensively, whether he’s detonating it immediately or
leaving it down on the battlefield to zone. We also wanted to make
Satchel Charge noticeably easier to use for players with a moderate or
higher amount of latency.

Satchel Charge

Can now be reactivated while in flight, causing the Satchel Charge to detonate on landing

Missile speed increased from 1600

Increased knockback distance from 350

Cooldown now starts when spell is cast, not when Satchel Charge detonates

Items

Wards

We’ve changed the reward structure for killing wards to alleviate the
gold pressure that can accumulate on supports as they push for vision
dominance around key locations. With Oracle’s Elixir already on a timed
duration, no longer making it expire on death means players can be more
aggressive with oracles, rather than passively clearing warded areas
they know to be safe. We want the focus of Oracle’s Elixir to be more of
an opportunity cost rather than a safety liability for the Oracle user.

Previously, characters like Jarvan who applied multiple physical
damage sources on a single attack could apply multiple stacks of Black
Cleaver's shred. We're cleaning up the item to make it more
understandable. Character's like Shyvana or Renekton that apply more
than one basic attack at the same time will still stack up multiple
shreds as normal.

Can no longer apply more than one stack of Armor Shred per basic attack.

Maw of Malmortius

We’ve made Maw of Malmortius’ passive bonus easier to understand at a
glance. Now Maw will grant its maximum AD when the shield procs, so
players will know exactly when they’re at their peak power.

Now grants 60 Attack Damage up from 55

Now grants 40 Magic Resistance up from 36

Passive now grants 1 Attack Damage for every 2% Health you are missing, up from 2.5%

"Just updated the Oracle elixir stuff with the secondary set of changes

Oracle Elixir
* Now persists through death
* Reveal Radius reduced to 600 from 750
* Duration reduced to 4 minutes from 5 minutes
* Now has a particle denoting the radius of effect

We are aware that making Oracle's elixir persist through death decreases the risk involved in the item and reduces the overall skill in using Oracle's.
The question is whether or not the skill involved in using Oracle's is the right skill we want to encourage for the game - the answer right now seems to be no: It promotes camping the Oracle's wielder and oracle users not participating in team fights. It also funnels the responsibility of Oracles only in champions that either cannot die or do not fight.

We also wanted to stop the snowball factor from influencing Oracle's as much because frequently Oracle's is only an option for champions who were not at risk of dying - something that is much more likely for the winning team than the losing team. While the counterplay to the current Oracle's is clear - it is not actually doable in most settings when Oracle Elixir is in play - we want the decision points around Oracle to be 'How do I use this effectively? When do I use this?' rather than 'Man - How can I avoid participating in anything that might murder me for the next 4 minutes?'

Note: I just put in these changes now, so they won't be reflected on the PBE build that is there currently but will happen with the next PBE build."